Gardening

Hello. Not sure if anyone here is into gardening. I tried checking the search engine but came up with some old (years ago) posts. Perhaps I didn't put the right phrase(s) in. I figured I'd ask anyway, so forgive me if this question has come up before. Anyone here ever tried planting shallots, potato onions, etc. for home gardening? Also, does anyone know where to buy a fig tree?
Thanks in Advance,
555

I never planted them my self but as for shallots and potato onions there is no resons why they should not be able too grow.

Figuretrees maby you can buy along the road to Nong Khai, i see alot of gardening companies there.

Thank you for the suggestion. I have never tried to grow potato onions and suppose that it is grown the same way as all the others in the family. Am guessing that November would be the cooler season to plant, then harvest sometime next summer? By the way, what do you grow; if anything now?

Well i don't rely grow anything my self and i have no idea what my lady grows, mostly herbals i guess. But in Sweden we used to grow lots of things such as potatoes, carrots, onions, cucumber, pumpkins, strawberry etc etc.

November should be a good month for planting potato onions.

My wife grows shallots most every winter season in Udon. No problems.

You might be able to find a fig tree (ต้นฟิก dohn ficg) at next month's Tungsrimuang fair (usually first 2 weeks of December). There are loads of nursery vendors selling most everything...including stock from the southern part of Thailand.
Another alternative: Khonkaen University holds an annual agriculture fair in January each year. Hundreds of vendors selling just about everything.....well worth a visit for a garden enthusiast.

I think you'll have some difficulty trying to grow figs in Thailand unless you're willing to deal with leaf rust (fungus). It's the same thing that attacks most Frangipani trees (Lee La Wa Dee) here causing them to drop their leaves and then the flowers a bit later. Beautiful fragrant flowers which would last much longer if you could control the rust problem. Grapes also have similar problems here in Thailand. The underside of the leaves need to be constantly sprayed to control the disease.

I tried growing vegetables last winter in Udon. Some successes, some disasters.

Potatoes can be grown, plant about early November and harvest in March. April is too hot and plants will suffer; best to grow in some shade. Potatoes not big but get maybe up to 1 kilo a plant, probably less.

Onions were a disaster. started ok in November, but basically stopper growing after 4 weeks. never got bigger than a small spring onion, slowly died off. I do not think Onions will grow here - but shallots should be ok.

Tomatoes are a local cold season crop. But need to start early, again plants die in April. Also because a lot are grown locally you can get a lot of disease and pest problems.

Sweet peppers, chillies and Auberegines - will grow, but can be a bit temperamental; may be down to varieties. got a few.

Cabbage, coriander, white radish all good. One success i was not expecting was carrots. Grew slowly but came good by March.

Spinach and other green leaves - traditional european spinach didn't like the heat but was ok December to February. Mizuna was ok as well. Lettuce ok - as long as not red variety.

Peas and beans. Peas grew fast - too fast. From sowing to death was about 6 weeks! got a few small pods from each plant. French beans didn't grow - maybe bad seed, maybe too hot to germinate. Tried runner beans - was not expecting much - seed grew, plants grew, plants flowered, but no pods. Died back in February with hot weather, came back to life in a cold wet snap, flowered again then died completely when hot weather returned.

Squashes - grow ok but disease a problem - My Courgette plants died after a couple of fruits, but someone else did very well.

tried strawberries - got a little fruit but plants died off one by one.

that's it. Experiment - depends on your soil, amount of shade and water you can give. Disease maybe a problem for some crops. Find what works for you.

I've always found the biggest problem to be the sun. Even plants like Hydrangers (from Phu Rua) die off if exposed to more than about 2 hours direct sun a day. I tried Turkish Tomato seed with no success, and have failed miserably with onions etc. Grew Raddish in large pots sheltered from the sun, with reasonable results, although many just "bolted" and went to seed.

Oh yes, Hydrangeas. bought some last year and dropped their leaves if even a little bit dried out. Same with flowers like the ubiquitous marigolds - only last 2 or 3 weeks. Gardening here is tough, unless you stick with trees and grass.

Doesn't seem logical to grow out of the sun - in UK can rarely get enough in your garden. December is the key month - if a plant can establish then, can survive a little bit of sun. Even my Cucumber wilts if it gets sunny unless soaking wet.

I think there's something about sun angles at 17degrees latitude that intensify the rays or the heat effect.......we certainly feel the effects when out and about between 11AM-3PM on what should be considered a pleasant 84 degree day.....it feels like 90+.

We have had good luck with a variety of corns....especially super sweet...and especially between Oct-Mar. As with all garden items, you'll need to have a plentiful source of water.

Finally, there are regular seeds and hybrid seeds. The hybrid seeds are more expensive, but tend to have fewer problems with disease/bugs. You can usually tell the difference by the price.....a small pack of cuke seeds might run 15-25baht....while the same size hybrid might be 100 baht.

Hi
Just been picking my Tomatoes, plum type, Plants are about six feet tall now, i was a bit late in clipping the tops.so really to many toms. on them. Wife grows corriander, grows well here. She tried runner beans, they would not stop growing. Took over a 20 foot tree, needed a ladder to pick them. i was sick of seeing and eating runner beans. She planted them in the worst bit of garden we have got, wife told me they would grow anywhere. She didn't call them runner beans, she called them yard long beans. Mango trees, very good. Make sure you get the sweet ones, never knew there where so many sorts. Peppers, they grew but not very well. Chilli, very good. as is lettuce. The biggest problem was getting banboo poles for the Toms, ended up using bits of branches, but to short.
I always put a couple of bags of cow dung in the soil a couple of weeks before i plant. Just trying some Chinese kale this morning, will see how it goes. From the fifty, or so, Toms we have picked, so far. There has only been two that had been attacked, they bore into Toms and the inside turns black. I never use sprays or the like on them. Back home used to use cows blood, diluted with rainwater, on them. Not found any in LOS yet. Cows blood that is.
Until the Toms grow a bit i put some fine netting over them, keeps the birds from eating the youg plants.
Cheers Doug.

Hi,
Forgot to add, tried growing potatoes when we moved here. Did not buy seed potatoes, just used some we bought at Tescos. Wrapped them in newspaper and put in a cool dark place for six to eight weeks. Untill shoots developed. I wanted to plant spuds because they break the soil up. They went all O.K. until the the LOS syndrome kicked in, picking everything to early, or is it just my wife that does this. same with mangoes, pomegranits and bananas. She said they had already flowered so time to pick. I said no, you have to wait until the plants die of. She did not believe this. Anyway spuds tasted good, though they were only small.

Douglas, seems you have green fingers! My tomatoes suffered from disease last year which killed them off in April; and 50% of my fruit was damaged and rotten. This year the tomatoes are already showing signs of distorted growth and they are only 6 weeks old.

I think the yardlong beans are different to runner beans - runners like cool conditions and are flat pods about 12" long, yardlong are - a yard long (if your lucky) and round in section.

It's great to hear that others have tried and are still continuing home gardening efforts. I did a little research on the internet and I think I will plant the potato onions in pots for the time being using the bagged potting soil amended with the dried cow manure. I haven't found any figs yet but I saw (did not buy) a very nice looking variegated banana tree...
Interestingly, I decided to look into gardening here because when buying tomatoes at the open market, occasionally, I notice a strong chemical smell off of them that kind of reminded me of a "petroleum" smell. Tried to wash it off with dish detergent and water but the smell was still there...On a "funny" note though, I started growing plants because of a "fear" of what the laws or lack of laws governing pesticides were here in Thailand. I then went to the store and promptly bought an insecticide...I was a bottle of Bio-oil. (I can't read Thai) I opened it up and it smell like Neem. Anyway, I sure hope it's Neem. Way safer than anything that smells like petroleum.

There are a variety of neem products available....if you bought the kind shown at
http://www.nova-science.com/Marang%20nog.html
I can help translate the mixing instructions for you, if you need them.

We've used neem on a variety of problems....sometimes it's effective, sometimes not. But it's usually always our first line of attack.